I had no thought as to which Billy Bragg track I wanted to post today – and lo, as I searched around there in the YouTubes, I found this! Our Billy chatting with my newest radio crush, Jian Gomeshi! (Jian broadcasts on CBC in Canada and his show, Q, is also broadcast on NPR. And I want to be his friend. But nothing creepy – I also want to be Billy’s friend).

So you know what? Here’s Billy being charming and friendly and talking about politics and soccer and fear of flying with old Jian. Followed by the song he performed in studio, “I Almost Killed You.”

‘Cause I’m awesome that way, I recently posted not one but two videos of a singing, dancing Canadian lobster puppet. Now I bring to you more Canadian wonder, via my Twitter pal @dvnix: Barenaked Ladies singing “Crazy ABCs.”

Leading to the only reasonable query: English – what’s up with that?

(Plus, bonus – nomination for best line in a pop song ever: “…tortillas” … “Nice rhyme.”)

You might well imagine that armed with this information, I proceeded to the YouTube. Whereupon I found the following piece of sheer delight: Captain Claw singing the undeniably catchy “When You’ve Got to Go” song.

Back in the 1990s, Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora got in touch with our man Billy, and asked him to write music for a whole treasure-trove of lyrics that Guthrie himself had never had a chance to set to music.

Which is to say: The torch was passed.

Bragg recorded these songs with Chicago-based band Wilco in the Mermaid Avenue project, and they’re probably the best known of his work in the US — but as they’re not “his” songs, I don’t really much associate them with him. Which is madness, really, and I’m sure he’d tell me so.

Be that as it may, there is one song that emerged from those recordings that I particularly love: “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.” The other day I commenced to look for a video — only to stumble upon the following, a truly random and delightful slice of Canadian pop culture: Billy Bragg performing on the (apparently) defunct kids show “Peggy’s Cove” (or, possibly, “The Peggy Show.” I’ll have to ask one of my Canadians to clarify this matter for me).

Did I say “performing”? I meant: Singing to a dancing lobster (ok, it’s really more of a rhythmic swaying that the lobster does, rather than a dance — he’s a puppet, after all), who eventually offers to row our Billy back to England. The visual quality isn’t quite HD, but the clip is really quite outstanding, nonetheless.

And the song, as ever, lovely.

Enjoy!

I lived in a place called Okfuskeeand I had a little girl in a holler treeI said, little girl, it’s plain to see,there ain’t nobody that can sing like me

She said it’s hard for me to seehow one little boy got so uglyYes, my little girly, that might be,But there ain’t nobody that can sing like meAin’t nobody that can sing like meway over yonder in the minor keyWay over yonder in the minor keythere ain’t nobody that can sing like me.